Friday, December 10, 2010

CORRUPTION ON THE RISE, SURVEY FINDS

MOST THINK CORRUPTION UP, ACCORDING TO TRANSPARENCY INTERNATIONAL SURVEY

BERLIN (AP) - People in most of the world believe corruption has worsened over the past three years, with the global financial crisis fallout colouring their views, according to a survey released Thursday by an international watchdog. Transparency International said that more than 91,000 people in 86 countries were surveyed between June and September for its Global Corruption Barometer survey. Overall, 56 per cent of respondents said corruption has increased in their country over the past three years, 30 percent said corruption levels have remained the same, and 14 percent saw a decrease. Respondents in Europe, where 73 per cent said they saw more corruption, and North America - where 67 percent reported a rise - were particularly pessimistic.

“The fallout of the financial crises continues to affect people’s opinions of corruption, particularly in Europe and North America,” said Huguette Labelle, Transparency’s chairwoman. Overall, people reserved their greatest distrust for political parties, with 79 per cent rating them corrupt or extremely corrupt. Around 60 percent rated public officials, parliaments and police as corrupt, while business and the private sector were viewed as corrupt by 51 per cent. Military and non-governmental organizations shared the best ratings, with only 30 per cent viewing them as corrupt. Transparency found that a quarter of respondents worldwide said they paid bribes to institutions over the past year - the police being the most frequent recipient.

Transparency International is an organization in Germany that monitors corruption and is associated with the Corruption Perception Index (CPI), which it publishes every year. According to its survey 2010, people worldwide believe that corruption (bribery) has increased in the last year. Political parties are seen as the most corrupt and the police and judiciary are the most frequent recipients of bribes. Nowadays, due to the influence of the ignorance mode of material nature (tamo-guna), many administrators and government men live only for the sake of their own personal interest. The result is that the whole social atmosphere becomes surcharged with bribery, cheating, and all kind of aggression.

WHAT DO THE VEDIC TEACHINGS TELL US?

Another symptom of Kali-yuga is avrttya nyaya-daurbalyam panditye capalam vacah: “Those without money will be unable to get justice, and anyone who can cleverly juggle words will be considered a scholar.” (Srimad-Bhagavatam 12.2.4) If you have no money, then you will never get justice in court. This is Kali-yuga. Nowadays even the high-court judges are taking bribes to give you a favorable judgment. But if you have no money, then don’t go to court. And panditye capalam vacah. If a man can talk expertly - it doesn’t matter what he says, and nobody has to understand it - then he is a pandita. He is a learned scholar. [Imitating gibberish:] “Aban gulakslena bugavad tugalad kulela gundulas, by the latricism of wife…” Like this, if you go on speaking, no one will understand you. [Laughter.] Yet people will say, “Ah, see how learned he is.” [Laughter.] This is actually happening. ... These things are going on.